Stigmata of the Crucified
by Magician April Aries
Summary: Snap, aim, fire—it was all about reaction time. It was a lesson he'd had to learn early: people don't stand still waiting for you to shoot them.


A/N: Okay! So I wrote this story in about... two, maybe three hours last night while waiting for my groupmates to get their acts together for our case study. Let me tell you, I was seriously depressed and pissed off writing this, so it's rather dark. Sorry guys and dolls, no humor here and not much romance. It started off more as an exercise in description than anything else.

Soooooooo I really don't expect a lot of review from this! Because hey, this is so far off my usual style that it's insane; probably the closest story I have to it would be A Thousand Paper Cranes. I decided to write on Kasanoda because I stumbled on some research about yakuza while doing my report on Japanese Studies previously, and because he's a rare character choice for me. His original character already has a lot of depth, because of the duality of the yakuza face/soft heart in his nature, so I explored a little on the inverse of that. I had a lot of problems with him, though, since I no longer have my copy of the manga... I had to guess a lot at my recollections, so if I took some artistic liberty to fill in those gaps, I hope you guys won't hate me too much.

This is for my lovely, lovely reviewers for NaF (I solemnly swear that next month an update for that wll come out, so please don't kill me yet!): the delightful Always A Bookworm, Aisu Dragoness, Nikita-chan6, gaahhh, porcelainanimals, tokyorain06, fyr3 phoenix, iPercy, HikaruKaoruandHaruhi and yumi-chan-likes-chainsaws. I'd also like to give a shout-out to FifteenthVector, because I haven't dedicated to you before and when I look back at my reviews page, my thought is... why the hell didn't I do this earlier? I love you guys!

This is also for my dear friend and groupmate who stayed with me while we angsted about our other groupmates. Long may your lemons, igloos, ice cubes and breadsticks live, my darling alien. :)

Getting too long so onwards to the story! Angst ahead. Lots and lots of it, unedited and unbeta'd. Don't like, don't read, okay? :) But constructive criticism is welcome.

* * *

Stigmata of the Crucified

"Cut it out," Kasanoda snapped. He snatched his bag out of the hands of the pouting girl, the clatter of metal clanging together resonating within it. She stuck her tongue out at him; she was five years old, talkative and bright. She danced out of his reach, the last of the afternoon sun making her skin glow gold. He glared at her. "Haruna! You know better than that!"

"But I want to look," she complained, tiny snub-nose wrinkling in complaint.

"No. They aren't toys." His eyes widened. "No! Not that!" He yanked her away from the small, rounded object, his heart pounding in his ears. "I told you, never touch my stuff!"

"What will happen if I touch your stuff?"

He swallowed hard as he stowed it away. "You could get hurt."

"Would I die?"

_Yes._ "You might." He reached out for her small hand, covered in scrapes from climbing trees and falling down hills. "So don't poke into anything, okay?"

"If I get hurt would I get to stay with mommy?"

For a few moments he couldn't answer, his throat constricting. "She wouldn't be happy to see you that way."

She climbed onto his lap, wriggling a little to make herself comfortable. "You look scary."

He laughed, softening. "I always do. They used to be afraid of me back in high school."

"Nooooo. Ritsu-chan isn't scary that way. You're scary because of all the lines on your face when you think I'm not looking." She touched his hand lightly. "And because of here."

He looked down at the purple hole burned into the flesh of his hand. It throbbed when she pressed down on it. For a moment his face twisted.

She tugged on his shirt. "I'm looking now, Ritsu-chan," she said quietly.

_So don't make that face._

He collected himself, smiling faintly at her. "Okay," he said, standing up, pushing her off. "I have to go. Kana onee-san will look after you, all right?"

"Is she my mommy now?" she asked suddenly.

Startled, he looked at her. "Do you want her to be?"

"No. I like her but she talks bad about Ritsu-chan."

"I don't blame her," he said, and his voice was hard, his eyes empty as windows with the panes blown out. But he picked her up gently, kissing the top of her head as he handed her over to a stone-faced woman.

"Ritsu-chan?"

He nodded at the question in her eyes. "I'll be careful."

"I love you, daddy," she called out, as she watched him leave. H grunted, ducked his head, but didn't reply.

* * *

The city lights made strange, slanting shadows across the street and along the tall concrete walls that defined turf and boundaries. In the narrow space between two buildings Kasanoda stood with six others. In his right hand he carried a gun, dull and cold; in the left a grenade seemed to pulse with its own life, like a still-beating heart ripped out of someone's chest. He measured its weight gingerly—once there was someone from a rival gang who'd carelessly left one lying around, and his kid had tossed one up and down like a ball.

The boy had lost his hand.

"Kana watching over Haruna?"

It was… Shinichi, his own 9 mm. pistol fully-loaded in his grip. He'd been thin and wiry back during Ritsu's high school days; now he was tall and solidly built, like a mountain; a scar ran jagged down the side of his face. Several years older, with three kids and a tired wife waiting for him at home… one child still in diapers…

"Yeah," he replied in a low voice.

"Tetsuya could talk a little today," Shinichi said, placing the hammer down on the pavement for a moment as he wiped his hands on his jeans. "So she should feel a little better. She's pretty, isn't she?"

"She reminds me of a lily."

"She hates you." Pale, elegant Kana, sitting beside Tetsuya's hospital bed, her face red from crying so long and so hard…

"Of course she does. Now get back to your position."

"Taking that tone with me now?" Shinichi said with a small grin. "I remember the days when you would leave presents by our futons around Christmastime." Picking his gun up once again, Shinichi began to draw back to his place.

_Those days ended long ago. _"Wait."

He paused. "Yes, kumicho?"

A flicker of a smile crossed Kasanoda's face at the form of address. "You remembered."

"I always have trouble with that… to me, you're always the young master. Even if you did grow up to be so big."

"I was always big," he muttered, remembering how he towered over everyone else in class 1-A. in comparison, the lightly-built Hitachiin twins had been nothing more than willow reeds…and Haruhi, small and slender as she was, could have broken easily in his hands.

"You wanted me to do something?"

He handed him the grenade, the other man's bigger palm shaking and clammy in spite of the unwavering smile on the scarred face. "Hold onto it."

* * *

Even with the neon filling the sky, there was a gloom that made it difficult for him to identify faces in the alley. They huddled in pairs—there Shinichi standing silent, curled against the wall. He couldn't remember how many times they'd lain in wait like this, along the winding streets and warehouses in the city.

Under the fire escape—you could always spot the new kids. He clutched his gun too tightly, wasting his energy in nervous movement whereas the others stayed taut as a bowstring waiting to be released. His face was white, like a moon floating in the dark, with eyes darting like a cornered animal's.

And across the road, another six men, parked in two cars and waiting for the signal behind tinted windows.

It was as the last few seconds ticked by that he always remembered his time on the practice range. He would adjust his safety glasses and take a step back, measuring the distance from his target. Snap, aim, fire—it was all about reaction time. It was a lesson he'd had to learn early: people don't stand still waiting for you to shoot them.

He would watch dispassionately as the bullet hit the target dummy in the chest, just inches below where a person's heart would have been; a hit like that would have punctured the lungs and caused the victim to drown in his own blood.

His first few attempts at handling a gun had been clumsy, weak; his bullets would go wide of the mark. Still, they'd thrown him into the missions, his father insistent on him getting some experience so that someday he could take over.

It was when Tetsuya had gotten shot covering for him that he realized that he didn't have the luxury of being weak. When Tetsuya had first been rushed to the hospital sporting a bullet in his head, Kasanoda hadn't even been permitted to accompany him in the ambulance. The other members of the gang insisted that he lay low and rush back home in the car lest he somehow be incriminated as well. It was only the next day that he was permitted to visit him, and Kana, Tetsuya's girlfriend, had screamed and thrown things at him.

Eight years. Kana had been—and was still—waiting eight years. He couldn't blame her for hating him, as she watched the rest of the gang where Tetsuya had belonged grow up and get married. Then she'd grudgingly become caretaker for their kids when they left, when their wives got caught in the crossfire and she was the only one left in the house to hold onto the tiny, crying forms…

_Haruhi…_

When Tetsuya had been put comatose into the hospital, he'd run to her house, still covered in evidence of everything he'd been doing. Haruhi's father had stared at him wordlessly before letting his daughter take the shaken boy inside. They'd asked nothing, but Ranka-san hadn't gone to work that night, to keep an eye on the two.

Ranka had never approved, he knew. Even as he'd walked Haruhi down the aisle, he hadn't been smiling. Neither had anyone else—Tamaki had nearly made them all deaf with the racket he made over it; Kyouya had almost set his private police force on him; Hikaru yelled at Haruhi 'for being stupid' and Kaoru had merely hung his head, for once not holding his twin back; Hunny had cried and refused to eat cakes for a week; and Mori… that had hurt the most. Mori had said nothing at all.

And still she married him, stubborn Haruhi who would never listen to anyone once her mind was made up. The host club's princess rejecting all the princes and running off to become a yakuza wife, to get killed one day during the tensest of negotiations with a rival group.

He wondered, at times, whether she'd chosen him because she'd loved him most out of all of the others who adored her… or whether it was because he'd simply been the one who needed her the most.

At seven forty-five, they sprang, and Kasanoda forced himself to stop thinking.

* * *

Shinichi fired the first shot. After that time seemed to speed up; the darkness was filled with bodies fanning out, urgent with movement, exclamations and quick muttering mingling in the air. The grenade soared magically into the mass of surprised targets. The blast jarred them momentarily as .34 caliber rounds hit flesh.

"That was for Tetsuya!" Kasanoda heard someone scream as their reinforcements flew out of the two cars. The cry made the adrenaline roar in his blood. Eight years ago one of their rivals had shot Tetsuya in the middle of one of their regular operations. An accident, they had claimed. The man who'd done it had run away, and Kasanoda had been almost relieved when he had. If the man had done yubitsume, and cut off a finger to make amends, he would have been forced to accept.

As it was, he hunted them, ruthlessly. They'd started with the one who'd gotten to Tetsuya. And now he was here, thinking _murderer murderer murderer_ as he tore through them like lightning.

In the whirling confusion of sinew and bone he lunged, struck, shooting where he could and striking blows when they got too close. He felt a heavy weight crash into his head, and his sight blurred as his head snapped back and he stumbled. Shinichi covered him quickly, handgun going off.

Beside him he could smell the new boy through the acrid smoke: a pungent haze of utter terror, of sweat and the sharp tang of urine.

The boy had big brown eyes, like a doe… like Haruhi…

Snap, aim, fire—repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

* * *

The aftermath of a fight was always wild, breathless with laughter and relief—for some reason they were still alive.

He grinned savagely as the others thumped the new boy on the back, congratulating him on his first time. The new kid was nursing a hole in his shoulder, groaning a little but giggling dementedly through the pain.

Kasanoda's clothes were spattered with gore, and he tightened his grip on his guns for a moment, hissing a little as he felt the burn on the back on his hand glisten wet and violently purple. He thought of Tetsuya, his eyes closed for so long, Kana waiting faithfully at his bedside; thought of the beautiful boy who'd left his own yakuza family in order to serve him; thought of how his head was swathed in bandages.

He thought of how he'd caught him that night, cradling his body in his arms and crying out when they'd ushered him away so he wouldn't get involved. And the hot scent of Tetsuya's blood, soaking into his shirt, onto his arms and hands, and on his face when he pressed his bloody palms to his eyes and wept.

Since that day he'd never missed the target, no, not once… and every day he would take a cigarette and grind it into the back of his hand, cursing the pain, needing the pain, watching as the would opened afresh like the stigmata of the crucified.

* * *

The second he'd walked in the door Haruna had grabbed onto his shirtfront, not minding the vivid smears on the fabric. She wasn't the type of child to launch herself at him in a bear hug, no matter how mischievous she was by nature and now matter how affectionate he was towards her; she knew better than that. Her eyes were swollen, and Kana's face was even whiter than it was normally.

"I'm sorry," she said, the words wrenching out of her painfully. How it must have hurt her to say them, to _him_ of all people. She hadn't even gone to his wedding. "We were baking in the kitchen, and I was distracted… she started playing with the knives…"

"Ritsu-chan," whimpered Haruna, clinging onto him. Her hand was wrapped with a thick swathe of white bandages. He picked her up with a little grunt, caressing her face. He kissed away the tears.

"It's okay, Haruna."

"There's blood, Ritsu-chan," she wept.

"I know. You'll be fine," he soothed her, looking at Kana with a nod of forgiveness as he carried the small frame inside to her room, where he lay her down on the bed. "I'll take you to Kyouya-ojisan's hospital tomorrow morning, okay?" He knew what the Ootori's expression would be when he found out that Haruna had gotten injured: empty, like a Noh mask, open to any interpretation, even though he knew that the Ootori would be filled with rage. He and the others still dropped by sometimes, and they'd visited regularly back when Haruhi was still alive. When she'd died, all of them had offered to adopt Haruna. And he'd been tempted… the yakuza was no life for a child…

But she had wanted to stay. Four years old, and already her spirit had been indomitable… those tiny hands had refused to let go.

He stripped off his bloodstained shirt, exposing scars on his shoulders and torso, and the tattoo of a wisteria on his back. When he had chosen his mark, some of the other members had wanted him to pick something fierce.

_But Fujioka means 'wisteria hill'._

He glanced at the mirror. Marks on his face, and lines, just as Haruna had said. He was thinner than he had been back in high school, his cheeks hollow and sunken. But the muscles in his arms stood out, taut and defined in the narrow frame.

He looked like a warrior.

(_I look like a killer_)

Once upon a time his face had frightened everyone away. With Haruhi and the rest of the Host Club's help, they'd seen past that to what was in his heart.

And now he had no heart left.

He tossed the clothes into the laundry and wondered if he washed them over and over again, if he scrubbed and soaked and bleached, somehow they could remove all the traces of that night.

* * *

He couldn't sleep.

It was common enough. There were plenty of his brothers who wandered around white-faced from lack of sleep, dark half-moons shadowing their eyes. Each time he attempted to drift off he'd be back in the alley, the gun like an extension of his arm in his hand. The cold metal had turned warm like a corpse coming to life.

Snap, aim, fire—repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat—at last he sat up, running his fingers through his tangled hair. He dragged himself to the window and stared up at the cloudless sky.

"Ritsu-chan."

He turned to look at Haruna, standing in the doorway. She was clutching her blanket to her chest.

"Hurts." Her voice was thick with sleep.

"Come here," he said, opening his arms to hold her. She was small and light, her eyes as wide as Haruhi's had been.

_Someday will I see them filmed with death?_

_Someday will my child die before I do?_

_Will I have to bury you like I did Haruhi?_

She fell asleep on his lap, body curled warm and soft against him as he stroked her hair.

His eyes fell on the wound on his hand, livid and painful. It had been there so long it was a part of him.

The first scar.

Shinichi's damaged face, the livid rip in skin like lightning on his cheek. The new boy, clutching onto his shoulder, where broken tissue would heal after agonizing weeks to leave an emblem of his first fight. And his own ravaged body, marked endlessly with indelible memories of every night since he had been forced to step forward and claim his inheritance from his father.

He looked at the bandages around Haruna's hand, taking the delicate palm in his own rough one, kissing each finger gently, slowly. _Please don't scar._

* * *

A/N: I have to say, this really hurt to write. I don't know if I should attempt this style again, though I do like veering off from my usual romance/humor sometimes just to test my skills.

I'm heading off to an anime convention tomorrow (cosplay!) but I'm hoping when I get back I'll see some comments? Haha! Just wishful thinking. Thanks for reading this far!


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